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Re: Karel van der Toorn

I don t post very often to this group, but is this the kind of nasty and abusive stuff that is allowed here by our moderators, attacking people as stupid and

Message 1 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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I don't post very often to this group, but is this the kind of nasty and
abusive stuff that is allowed here by our moderators, attacking people as
stupid and lazy? We need a little less psychodrama and sanctimonious
self-righteousness on this list.

As for the issues at hand, Mitch Allen published the paperback of my book
about Catalhoyuk, The Goddess and the Bull, and having the notes at the end
works very well. As a reader, I simply keep a bookmark or a post-it with the
notes and flip back when I feel strongly enough that I need to see it, which
is not always. This way I have the choice.

Far be it from me to come to the defense on someone on ANE, but as I remember the invectives in the initial letter in this thread were anonymous, and not ad

Message 2 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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Far be it from me to come to the defense on someone on ANE, but as I
remember the invectives in the initial letter in this thread were anonymous,
and not ad hominem, meaning that the person under attack is someone we all
hate but certainly don't see in ourselves, so they are OK.

I don't post very often to this group, but is this the kind of nasty and
abusive stuff that is allowed here by our moderators, attacking people as
stupid and lazy? We need a little less psychodrama and sanctimonious
self-righteousness on this list.

As for the issues at hand, Mitch Allen published the paperback of my book
about Catalhoyuk, The Goddess and the Bull, and having the notes at the end
works very well. As a reader, I simply keep a bookmark or a post-it with the
notes and flip back when I feel strongly enough that I need to see it, which
is not always. This way I have the choice.

... A former supervisor - Judy Sealy (of Blombos Cave fame) - gave me what I consider to be very pertinent advice a decade ago: if it is not worth including in

Message 3 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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Michael Balter wrote:

> As for the issues at hand, Mitch Allen published the paperback of my book
> about Catalhoyuk, The Goddess and the Bull, and having the notes at the end
> works very well. As a reader, I simply keep a bookmark or a post-it with the
> notes and flip back when I feel strongly enough that I need to see it, which
> is not always. This way I have the choice.

A former supervisor - Judy Sealy (of Blombos Cave fame) - gave me what I
consider to be very pertinent advice a decade ago: if it is not worth
including in the text body or if you cannot find place forit, then it is
not worth saying. The result is a clear, flowing text on pages whose
layout is not interrupted by footnotes.

I recognise that sometimes endnotes are neccessary, but by and large
that information can be included anyways in Supplementaries in articles
and dissertations.

--
Best, Mikey Brass
Forthcoming doctoral candidate, University College London
"The Antiquity of Man" http://www.antiquityofman.com
Book: "The Antiquity of Man: Artifactual, fossil and gene records explored"

That's why they're at the bottom of the page! (And not interspersed
within the text.) Benno Landsberger was famously doing it that way a
generation before Jacobsen.

"Current Trends in Linguistics" is a 14-volume series of very large
books published between 1960 and about 1976 that surveyed the entire
field, and footnotes were used throughout -- with one exception: the
great Romance philologist and historical linguist Yakov Malkiel was
famous for his extensive and invaluable notes, and they are so long that
they are printed as endnotes.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@... <mailto:grammatim%40verizon.net>

Well with the advent of electronic books we will soon have the option of

viewing notes either as footnotes or endnotes at the click of the mouse.

Quite frankly, although I personally prefer footnotes, I do sometimes
like
to read an article from beginning to end without the footnotes
interfering
with the main narrative. Right now I'm reading an article by the late
Throkild Jacobsen who was a master at writing major contributions in his

footnotes, using the article itself as just something on which to hang
them.
Although I might like to see his references in footnotes, the articles
embedded in the footnotes are better read separately.

That's why they're at the bottom of the page! (And not interspersed
within the text.) Benno Landsberger was famously doing it that way a
generation before Jacobsen.

"Current Trends in Linguistics" is a 14-volume series of very large
books published between 1960 and about 1976 that surveyed the entire
field, and footnotes were used throughout -- with one exception: the
great Romance philologist and historical linguist Yakov Malkiel was
famous for his extensive and invaluable notes, and they are so long that
they are printed as endnotes.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@verizon. <mailto:grammatim%40verizon.net> net
<mailto:grammatim%40verizon.net>

Well with the advent of electronic books we will soon have the option of

viewing notes either as footnotes or endnotes at the click of the mouse.

Quite frankly, although I personally prefer footnotes, I do sometimes
like
to read an article from beginning to end without the footnotes
interfering
with the main narrative. Right now I'm reading an article by the late
Throkild Jacobsen who was a master at writing major contributions in his

footnotes, using the article itself as just something on which to hang
them.
Although I might like to see his references in footnotes, the articles
embedded in the footnotes are better read separately.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Stern, Richard H.

Is it necessarily black or white - that is, only two possibilities? I.e., important enough to put in text or else consigned to the back of the book? Some

Message 6 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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Is it necessarily black or white - that is, only two possibilities?
I.e., important enough to put in text or else consigned to the back of
the book?

Some writers use textual footnotes in which they elaborate on points,
but the digression might break up the flow of the main narrative in a
way that troubles those skimming through that part of the text. It is
one thing to consign purely citational notes to the back of the bus, but
with textual digressions put into footnote in order to keep main text
from becoming disjointed, it needs to be at the bottom of the page so
that readers can take a quick look to determine whether they wish to
pursue that particular digression. Some will, while others won't. As a
reader, whose business stupid publishers presumably need to attract to
keep the wolf from the door, I find those publications that banish only
citations to the back easier to read and more likely to please me than
publications that use 100% endnotes.

What would be wrong with having enough flexibility to banish only
citations? And how do you explain the very common habit of citing
Biblical references in parentheses in text? E.g., "(Jer. 30:29-32)."

... I find that it depends very much on the content of the article. An article on epigraphy would often be useless without extensive footnotes. It also

Message 7 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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At 08:12 AM 11/5/2007, Mikey Brass wrote:

>A former supervisor - Judy Sealy (of Blombos Cave fame) - gave me what I
>consider to be very pertinent advice a decade ago: if it is not worth
>including in the text body or if you cannot find place forit, then it is
>not worth saying. The result is a clear, flowing text on pages whose
>layout is not interrupted by footnotes.

I find that it depends very much on the content of the article. An
article on epigraphy would often be useless without extensive
footnotes. It also depends on the discipline and who your supervisor
was. I have found myself in historical/language papers providing
extensive footnotes. An archaeological NARRATIVE can sometimes be
written without them (if you use parenthetical citations, which not
all journals do), but publication of objects should include footnotes
(or endnotes, but in this case I would argue footnotes for ease of
use) for more extensive comparanda. I think we may all be talking
about our own fields here, rather than about the publications of
tangential fields. And thus we are not agreeing.

After having it in my library for some 20 years, I m finally getting around to reading Shirer s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. At least in the paperback

Message 8 of 17
, Nov 5, 2007

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After having it in my library for some 20 years, I'm finally getting around to reading Shirer's
"Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." At least in the paperback edition I'm reading, this is how
the notes are done. Numbered notes are endnotes and are limited strictly to citations, while
"further information" notes that elaborate, say, on what ultimately happened to a certain
person mentioned in the text, are footnotes marked by asterisks, bullets, daggers and all
that paraphernalia. I find this a very useful setup, but if a publisher must limit to one or the
other, I will prefer footnotes every time, since I have no way of knowing what is going to be a
comment and what is going to be a citation. There's often a lot of info in those notes that
isn't strictly relevant to the text at hand, and I greatly prefer having them right there on the
page so I can evaluate them on the fly without potentially losing my place in the text.

On 5 Nov 2007 at 11:53, Stern, Richard H. wrote:

> Is it necessarily black or white - that is, only two possibilities?
> I.e., important enough to put in text or else consigned to the back of
> the book?
>
> Some writers use textual footnotes in which they elaborate on points,
> but the digression might break up the flow of the main narrative in a
> way that troubles those skimming through that part of the text. It is
> one thing to consign purely citational notes to the back of the bus, but
> with textual digressions put into footnote in order to keep main text
> from becoming disjointed, it needs to be at the bottom of the page so
> that readers can take a quick look to determine whether they wish to
> pursue that particular digression. Some will, while others won't. As a
> reader, whose business stupid publishers presumably need to attract to
> keep the wolf from the door, I find those publications that banish only
> citations to the back easier to read and more likely to please me than
> publications that use 100% endnotes.
>
> What would be wrong with having enough flexibility to banish only
> citations? And how do you explain the very common habit of citing
> Biblical references in parentheses in text? E.g., "(Jer. 30:29-32)."
>
> =====================================
> Best regards.
>
> Richard H. Stern
> rstern@...rstern@...
> Washington, DC 20036
> http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/rhs1.htm
> =====================================
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Dave Washburn
Why do it right when you can do it again?

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